Queer the Census campaign launches!

Data, data, data! As a researcher I’m saying this lots, we need data! We need LGBT folk to be counted because every time we are invisible, we miss out on resources, funding, research, services. And for a data wonk, the next few months are really exciting. Because in about a month the once every 10 years census forms will hit our houses. Do they count us? NO. (OK, they will count same sex households, and that’s good, but it’s still like trying to count the number of people by seeing how many shirts are in the laundry, not wholly wrong, but not super precise either.) So I love the brainstorm an old friend had one day, why not slap stickers on our census envelopes with the type of question we’d like to see added? Luckily this friend was the head of the National Gay and Lesbian Task ForcePolicy Institute and so she was able to make that brilliant idea into a full fledged census data campaign; Queer the Census! See their amazing petition, stickers and more here. And whatever happens, be sure to get your sticker so you can fill out your census, then tell them which question was missing!

The Network for LGBT Tobacco Control is very proud to be funding an organizer for this campaign so some of its energy can be turned towards health. Watch for more on that soon, but for now, let’s tell them we need to be counted!